Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said after the game that Jeff Schultz left the game with an "upper body" injury. Schultz told me after the game that it was back spasms, and he was struggling to get his equipment in place in his stall while I was talking to him, so I don't think he was lying. He said he'd like to practice tomorrow, but who knows with that type of injury.

The Flyers are calling Kimmo Timonen's injury the "upper body" vareity as well.

"Well, we will know more tomorrow," Philadelphia coach John Stevens said. "Kimmo is our best defenseman. The fact that he is hurt right now and since we are uncertain how bad it is, yes, I'll say I'm concerned."

It didn't appear that Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom benefited much from Timmonen's absence. If this hasn't been made clear, Braydon Coburn is really, really good. I think it is fair to say we are witnessing two of the top three-to-five U-25 defensemen in the league in this series.

Speaking of the other young blue line stud, Mike Green now leads all defensemen in playoff goals so far. Also, he said he fought Scottie Upshall because Upshall elbowed Shaone Morrisonn in the face. The Caps missed him dearly for seven minutes in the third period, but good on him for standing up for someone.

With Schultz out, Sergei Fedorov spent some of the second period and basically all of the third playing defense, something he's done before in his career with success.

"I thought he did really good. I thought he moved the puck well," Bruce Boudreau said. "The pace of the game was such that our 'D' were getting pretty tired, especially when Mike Green broke a skate blade in the second period and missed time and he got seven minutes in the box [in the third]. We needed to give these guys a break, and if we ever need to put Sergei back there, what better time to experiment at it, so that's what we did."

Finally, if anyone thought this game reminded them of one of those games from the Glen Hanlon Era when shots were missing and getting blocked left and right, well it was. Washington put 19 shots on net, but 25 were blocked and 18 missed the net. That's 30.6 percent from the field, which is not good in hockey, basketball or just about any other sport that involves shooting percentage.

- Corey Masisak